


Rise Up

by Mercia



Category: Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, Pre-Training Montage?, Survivor Guilt, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 14:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21147470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercia/pseuds/Mercia
Summary: The day after the Collider, after everything, Miles finds himself back at Aunt May's. He's not the only one seeking refuge there.





	Rise Up

**Author's Note:**

> _Legacy. What is a legacy?_   
_It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see._

To be honest, Miles wasn't completely sure what he was supposed to be doing. He felt kinda dumb about it, even though he was supposed to be Spiderman. 

It was 7.30am and Miles should have been getting ready for school soon, but instead he'd been swinging around May Parker’s neighbourhood for what seemed like half an hour, going round it in circles, but was really more like two. If he were anyone other than Spiderman, it would probably look very suspicious. It didn’t help how open he was in the suburbs, with smaller, more spaced out bungalows, than the packed in concrete towers of the city where he usually patrolled. The houses weren’t tall enough to swing properly so he found himself swinging on the lampposts, tiring himself out, but only a little. Except, he wasn’t not patrolling right now. He was…

He was deliberating. Which he had been doing since 5am this morning, when he’d woke up and realised his heart had been thrumming too much to go back to sleep, body anxious with stored up energy, almost frenetic. 

Look, who could blame him, okay? After everything that had happened yesterday, he was entitled to a bit of doing-whatever-he-felt-like. He’d saved the city! Saved the multiverse, even though only a few people knew there was a multiverse to save in the first place, and half of them were criminals. His first bout as the new, official (?) Spiderman was taking down a major villain; not to mention, the whole of last week in total.

Basically, in short, Miles was completely in over his head, but he wasn’t sure what exactly the things over his head entailed, which was why he was trying to justify swinging past May Parker’s house for what was probably the fiftieth time — he lost count after twenty — instead of heading back to Visions.

Like, was he supposed to pay for the suit? Did Mrs Parker expect the suit returned? Even after he’d spray painted it? Was he supposed to start making his own? What about the web shooters? Should he try making those too? What if they ran out? 

It wasn’t until maybe seven or nine (really, he couldn’t tell anymore) rounds later that he heard a faintly amused, “you can come in, you know,” in a weird, distorted pitch he was pretty sure could only be heard by him, and probably other Spider-people, coming from the house of May Parker herself. 

Miles took a deep breath and swung down, landing super-duper gracefully on the front-porch.

“Mi— Spiderman,” said May, opening the door, a cup of steaming tea in one hand and a gentle smile on her face. “Would you like some breakfast?”

Instantly, Miles relaxed. What was he even worrying about? “That sounds great! Thanks Mrs Parker!”

“Aunt May,” she corrected, letting him in and closing the door behind. “What’s troubling you?”

“Wha— “ he began eloquently. Because, no, he was not a kid. He was a fully sized, grown-up adult, puberty and all. “What makes you say that?”

“You’ve swung by the house one hundred and thirty seven times.”

“Huh.”

Miles followed her through into the kitchen and stopped short, breath caught in his throat. 

“Good morning,” Mary Jane Parker said pleasantly. She took a sip of her coffee. 

* * *

Mary Jane Watson was not an idiot, by any accounts. The last time she might have been accused of anything of that sort was when she had kind-of-sort-of been dating Peter Parker, and also kind-of-sort-of kissed Spiderman. So yeah, she did her research now. 

Which is why, when she’d received the invitation to the Wilson Fisk Charity Spiderman Memorial Event, she had accepted. Which is why, when she’d asked for more bread at her table, she knew she was hearing Peter's voice stuttering away behind the mask, even if she didn’t know how. Or why — didn't want to know why but had needed to. She did her research, she knew there was a particle accelerator four floors below her, knew that there'd been police reports of multiple different “Spider-people” since the death of her husband; and she knew, somehow, that all these things had been connected. 

So she had sat there and texted May Parker and received no reply, listened to Mr Wilson Fisk talk about her Peter and tried not seethe. At least not outwardly.

Mary Jane Watson- _ Parker  _ had seen a great deal in her lifetime. Had survived explosions and hostage situations and shootings and Swine Flu and entrance exams and doing a Masters degree. And she had had to wait at home and learn patience every night, and learn to hack into police radios through youtube tutorials and reddit, and  _ listen.  _ Listen to actual real-life supervillains barter death and her boyfriend try to stop it. It fucking sucked, she could tell you that. 

So when the city honest-to-God started to glitch, and the ground was shaking for the second time in a week (how had it only been a  _ week? One week since she’d last seen her Peter) _ and they’d all been told to evacuate, Mary Jane walked out calmly, with purpose, and had not let herself think beyond carrying this child to their parents, or helping that old man reach somewhere hopefully safe, or helping a young mother find her son. It was what had to be done, after all. She achieved nothing by letting herself succumb to the same panic she’d been through time and time again. 

And she didn't have to worry about what Peter was doing during the chaos because, well, Peter was not doing anything.

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about that. 

She had not been quite clear of the blast-range when the building blew up, but the foundations had mostly crumbled inwards and so she’d only got a bit of the debris falling around her. Mostly, she’d just inhaled a lot of black smoke, which might have been worrying but she'd been through worse. Much worse. This was nothing.

Aunt May had finally called her, and it was then, when she was driving through the chaos to May's house, already tuned into the police radios, that she had heard it.

_ “...That's — Is that Spiderman?... Hey — ” _

It wasn’t of course, even though it might’ve been. Even though she’d said before that anyone could be Spiderman. 

It hadn't been a lie. She meant it then, still did.

It was not her Peter, though

Still, Mary Jane turned up the dial, and let the noise of action accompany her.

Mary Jane had a key to the front door, Peter had insisted after a year, but it felt wrong to use it so she rang the doorbell. It only took Aunt May three seconds to answer and she was tense and there was an old shotgun held in one hand, and Mary Jane could not blame her, because she was the same.

“MJ…” she began, releasing a breath.

And MJ choked on the air because she hadn't been  _ MJ  _ since the funeral. Hadn't been anything except Mary Jane Parker, Ms Parker,  _ Spiderman’s wife. _

And she was all those things, always, but really, she was still just MJ.

“Hi,” said MJ, after a pause. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” said Aunt May — or should it be just  _ May  _ now? “You have the key don't you?”

“Yes, but I didn't know if…”

Aunt May gave her a smile, tired around the edges, a little weary, but still warm. “You're welcome here anytime. You know that,” she said and shut the door behind them.

* * *

“Uh, G’morning,” Miles replied, feeling small. Even though it had only been a week, and it had been one helluva week too, the meeting felt long overdue. Too late, really. Although he supposed there wasn’t really good timing for these things.

“Miles,” called Aunt May from the fridge, “Orange juice, water or milk? You’re not vegetarian or anything, are you? You don’t have any allergies?”

“U-uh,” he cleared his throat, straightening his back from what had been a tired slouch into what his mom would call more respectable. “Orange juice, thanks. And nope — not vegetarian or anything, and no allergies.”

“I suspect the bite would have cleared any of those, anyway,” said Mary Jane Parker without missing a beat. 

“Y-yeah,” Miles replied awkwardly. 

“Miles, is it?” said Mary Jane Parker, setting down her mug and holding out her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs Parker,” he replied, taking the hand but unsure, suddenly all too conscious of the mask which was still over his face. 

He took a breath and moved to take it off.

“No!” Mary Jane Parker cried, startling him, and there was a clang from the side because Aunt May had dropped her spoon. “No,” she said, and took a steadying breath, “you can keep it on. I mean,” and she rubbed her face quickly before smiling. And it was not an ingenuine smile but it was only a half smile. “I mean, obviously you can lift it to eat, but you — you don’t have to remove it fully.”

“Right,” Miles replied, leaving his face half covered and lowering his hands slowly, thankful that the mask at least meant she couldn’t see his expression, because he wasn’t sure what it would betray. 

“Miles, you can take a seat,” said Aunt May, coming over with a glass of orange juice and a hot plate of fried toast, eggs, bacon, sausages.

“Thank you so much, Aunt May,” Miles said, genuinely grateful. “It all smells amazing.”

Aunt May smiled warmly, “Well, I know you spiders like to eat a lot.”

It was probably something of intent, but ten minutes before Miles said he would have to leave for class, two more servings later, with Aunt May chatting idly between them for the most part, the said woman excused herself saying she needed to take a shower, and that Miles should have a good day at school and not hesitate to stop by later if need be, and that MJ should have a good day at work also, and they shouldn’t worry about washing up.

And then it was just him and Mrs Mary Jane Parker sitting at the little dining-table in the kitchen. There were only three seats — when the other spiders were here they’d either been in the Shed or in the living room — and Miles tried not to think about which seat Peter would have sat in. 

The air was still, but not stifling, not thick or heavy, maybe because it was morning — in fact it felt just too light. As though anything would disturb it and it made Miles want to hold his breath. 

“Mrs Parker —” began Miles, anyway, not really sure where he was leading to but it just felt as though he should say  _ something. _ “I’m so sorry.”

Because in the end, it would probably always come down to this.  _ I’m so sorry. _

“It’s okay,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at him, just staring out the window, or perhaps just at the dust floating near lazily near it.

Miles bit his lip and took a breath, “I’m so sorry,” he said again. “If there’s anything I can do — anything at all—”

“There’s nothing,” she interrupted firmly. “There’s nothing—” and she gave a short, shallow laugh, and it wasn’t bitter, really, just sad. “You’re already Spiderman. Already continuing his work. You stopped the Collider, just like he would have wanted. There’s nothing more you could be doing.”

“But, Mrs Parker...” Miles trailed off. 

He didn’t really know what he wanted her to say, even though it was unfair for him to want her to say anything when it was she who’d lost her husband. It was almost like he wanted someone to just yell at him, get angry with him, not someone like Fisk, but someone righteous, someone who could shout because he deserved it

That was it, after all, wasn’t it?

Peter Parker was dead because he didn’t do anything

Uncle Aaron was dead because he didn’t do anything. 

There were at least sixty people in hospital because he hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t been strong enough.

And now New York was left with what? A second-rate, replacement, only-half-competent, kid Spiderman? How nice. 

He took another breath. “I was there when he— when Peter...died. And I couldn’t— I didn’t — do anything. I just ran, and I—”

“I know,” she interrupted again. “I know.” And then she looked at him. Miles wondered what he looked like, this tiny kid in one of Peter’s suits but the whole thing was spray-painted different colours. Was it disrespectful? “Take off your mask, Miles — I mean, only if you want.”

Miles did. It was the only right thing to do, after all. 

She let out a loud breath. “You’re only a kid, younger than when Peter started.”

“Only a little, Mrs Parker,” he mumbled. 

“Right,” she said. “Only a little.” She raised her mug to her lips again and finished her coffee off silently. “Miles,” she said at last. “ You know the worst part was, after I found out, the not knowing. Not knowing what was happening out there, or if Peter needed help and wouldn’t tell me until after.” She ran her hand through her hair, and for only half a second, he caught her grief, hidden under her carefully sustained mask of being Mrs Parker — once celebrated journalist and now Spiderman’s wife, public figure. “Just stay alive, okay? If you really want to do something for me, just stay alive.”

Miles understood, he really did. Even though he was a spider-person himself, he understood. What was he’d said to Peter, not this Peter but the other one?  “ _ I can’t sit there and just let Spider-Man die without doing anything about it. I’m not doing that again! _ ”

After all, the one thing Peter hadn’t done which Miles had was watch Spiderman die. It made a difference, he thought, not just because it meant he couldn’t help save the city anymore, but just— watching Spiderman die had been awful. Watching Fisk rip the mask off Peter’s face, and hearing the dull, hollow thud and the crack of Peter’s ribcage… and then watching Uncle Aaron’s life draining out of him, and him saying “ _ I let you down, man,”  _ and then Peter telling him at the Collider “ _ This guy could kill you! I can’t let Spider-Man die. _ ” It was a dreadful sort of responsibility he had for himself now.

This was the same, he supposed. For both Mary Jane Parker and Aunt May, even though they had still lost their Peter Parker — they weren’t gonna let Spiderman die, again.

It was an impossible promise, Miles knew, and he wondered how many times Peter had made it, how many times all the other spiders had made it; he wondered how many times he himself would have to make it in the future, but he nodded. 

“Alright,” he replied. “I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please let me know by leaving a kudos and maybe a comment!
> 
> As you might know, this week (Oct 19. - 26.) is bidding week for Marvel Trumps Hate event - a fandom charity auction! It's relevant here because I'm auctioning a 5-15k fic! There are only THREE days left, so if you like how I write but I haven't written the exact thing you have always wanted, then:  
check out my offer [ here!](https://mercialachesis.tumblr.com/tagged/mth2019).  
Or find another author/work that you really like, it's all for a worthy cause!  
I am also offering fan art!
> 
> have a good day! <3 <3 <3


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